What’s the old saying? The rich only get richer? Under just about every measure of a team, the Vancouver Canucks are one of the richest teams out there these days. They won the Presidents’ Trophy as the best team in the regular season, won the Northwest Division by 23 point and were within a single game of their first Stanley Cup in their 40-year franchise history last season. Even though the season is still two months away, they’re already the favorites to win next year’s Cup.

This just in: they’re pretty good.

Apparently they’re not good enough though. There are reports out of Vancouver that the organization is still looking to make another move to help strengthen their team next season. From Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province:

“‘We’re still looking at areas to improve the hockey team,’ assistant GM Laurence Gilman admitted. ‘There is money to be spent.’

The Canucks do have some flexibility with cap space — they vow to spend to the limit — a glut of borderline second liners and a backup goalie who is ready to be a starter for another team. So, they’re not against making some moves.”

A quick look at the Canucks salary cap situation after the Jannik Hansen signing shows they have 23 roster player signed for the 2011-12 season for $61.8 million (per Capgeek.com); they have just over $2.5 million to play with next season. If Cody Hodgson were to make the team, his $1.6 million cap hit would chew away at their available cap space. Same goes for 21-year-old defenseman Chris Tanev and his $900,000 cap hit. But assuming those players aren’t able to make the team (and judging by the current roster, they probably won’t), the Canucks still have money to play with.

Of course, there could be plenty more cap space if the Canucks are looking to make a trade instead of a free agent signing. If they were able to part ways with Keith Ballard’s $4.2 million cap hit, the city of Vancouver may riot in celebration they’d be able to fit just about any player they covet under the salary cap. The Canucks would be able to fit a scorer to help Ryan Kesler on the second line if they wanted a forward. They’d be able to find another defenseman to replace the departed Christian Ehrhoff.

Again, this is a team that dominated play during the regular season last year. Not only did they dominate with 117 points (10 points better than the 2nd place Caps), but scored the most goals in the league and allowed the fewest. They were the best team on the power play and up until the last week of the season, they were the best team on the penalty kill. They were a well-rounded, well-oiled machine last year.

The rest of the Western Conference has been spending the offseason trying to figure out how they were going to match the Canucks of a year ago. Now they can worry about the Canucks trying to make themselves even better than they were last year. Good luck with that.